A confabulous morning running down dreams of championship seasons 

Confabulation - I chose the word to describe old coaches kicking around sports stories and shared histories blended with current issues, something I find fun as I sit on the bumper of my 4Runner. On Monday at 7:30 a.m. at Cape, by random happenstance, I found myself talking with coaches George Pepper, Bob Cilento and Gary Montalto. I think in friendly parlance we’d be known as old war horses. I looked up the word confabulation discovering it was an actual word (I thought maybe I made it up). It’s defined as “a memory error where a person unintentionally recalls false or distorted memories and believes them to be accurate.” A long tradition in Sussex County. It's called spinning yarns. 

Fitness standard - Each year for as long as I can remember, Cape hockey has started the first practice for the fall season with a two-mile timed run. Varsity candidates are required to run two miles in under 16 minutes. Some really good and proven players can’t break 16 minutes – it's just not in their genetic makeup. In fact, over the years, there have been leading scorers and clutch players who never made the standard. And I remember a few players that would just kill the run but they weren’t very good hockey players. The moral of the story is, not much makes complete sense. The Presidential Fitness Test is returning to public middle schools and high schools. The test has been gone since 2013. Think Pink Floyd or pink elephants: “Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone!” The first rendition of the test from 1966 to 2013 was persecutory. Think pommel horse with a swayed back. 

Committed - When grandson Magic Mikey was in fifth grade, I took a photo of him holding a lacrosse stick while wearing a Michigan T-shirt. I wrote in my column that he had committed to Michigan but forgot to tell them. Yes, a joke that got legs; some people just don’t process subtleties. I had a student once say to me, “If you don’t cut nobody, you ain’t no doctor,” and I’d add, “If you don’t get no money, you ain’t no commit.” I’ve since learned that certain colleges may open the door and guarantee a roster spot without committing to any free money; that is between you and the financial aid office. We think kids today lack depth and breadth, but if you can’t strafe the information highway and learn what you need to know on the first pass, just keep going.   

Sideline discipline - I haven’t coached high school football since 1988, but I’ve survived 50 years of chaos and near collisions as a mesomorphic media mook. What happens on the sidelines is behind the coach’s back but in front of the faces of fans. Ball boys having a catch, players waving to relatives and the occasional little person who is there with Dr. Dad are all bad ideas. Some staffs – maybe most – have a coach assigned to keep the sidelines tight. I’ve lost my elusivity. It's a law of nature, which is why me and my long lens are sitting on a barstool on top of the long jump runway beyond the end line.  

Statistics don’t lie - But the numbers deceive people, like a baseball team with a five-game lead with 43 left to play. Is that a safe lead or a don’t-count-your-chickens false sense of security? For example, as of Tuesday, if the Phillies were to play .500 baseball (22-22) and win 91 games, then the Mets would have to close 28-16 just to tie them. The 1964 Phillies led the National League by 6.5 games in September with just 12 games left, then lost 10 in a row and lost the pennant to the Cardinals. I was there at Connie Mack Stadium at 22nd and Lehigh when the Phillies lost the pennant to the Cardinals. That’s why old-time Phillies fans don’t trust good times, they trust nothing until the trolley is in the barn.    

Snippets - The DIAA website used to be great for tracking sports histories and championships, but for some sports it hasn’t been updated in years. The longer you let history languish, the harder it is to retrieve. I collect football helmets. The only requirement is the helmet was acquired free – and, yes, stolen falls into that category, but I’m not saying any of them are lifted lids. I posted photos on Facebook after cleaning my garage collection. Some had birds’ nests inside them. An odd assortment of characters responded with likes. It was the algorithm or AI connecting people by helmets. It's a strange and scary world. Some guy across the ocean sent me a message: “I have a swollen left foot too.” Go on now, git!